Three years later World War II broke out. France was occupied by Germany, and when the war ended in 1945, the devastation to French society and its economy was enormous; the immediate postwar situation desperate. The French turned to the Americans for help. … France was broke. It was incapable of quickly rebuilding its manufacturing sector in order to sell goods overseas and earn the hard currency it needed. What made sense was to bring the money to France, to have American tourists with dollars fill the tables at cafés and restaurants, buy souvenirs, take train rides and patronize hotels and country inns.
The French were excellent students; they wanted to make money. Once they understood what makes a hotel modern and comfortable, they convinced officials at the Marshall Plan to help underwrite a miniboom in hotel room construction. By the end of the plan France boasted 452,471 rooms, more than any other country in Europe. They also latched on to the idea of making Paris a popular city for conventions. From those American-inspired beginnings, Paris grew to become the world’s most popular city for meetings.
Tourism v.s. Public Diplomacy
U. S. officials also hoped that American tourists would play a role in diplomacy. In one of the first modern instances of tourism purposefully used as public diplomacy, both governments decided that American tourism would strengthen the ties between the two people and win the French over to the American side of the burgeoning Cold War. At that moment the French Communist Party was one of the strongest political parties in the country. The French government sided with the United States against the Soviet Union but not because of those American visitors.
On the contrary, this was the moment when the Americans and the French discovered how much they didn’t like each other. The American tourists thought the French were “haughty,” and the French thought the Americans were vulgar consumers. At one point the U.S. State Department had to print advisories to American travelers with “tips for your trip” for getting along with the French.
This was the first hint that simply letting tourists loose in a foreign country would not necessarily lead to better understanding. Mass tourism by people who couldn’t speak the native language often had the opposite effect. (The French eventually solved that problem by learning English, now the international language.)
The plan did fulfill the American goal of getting France back on its feet and firmly within the western camp, as well as establishing a new pattern of trade with the United States. The biggest impact, though, was on France, which exceeded its goal of wooing 3 million tourists to the country in 1952. American government aid had kick-started the modern tourism industry in France with those hotel rooms, tourist airfares and inculcation of the idea of Paris as the ideal city for glamour. From then on, the French government kept its hand in all aspects of tourism.
The French were excellent students; they wanted to make money. Once they understood what makes a hotel modern and comfortable, they convinced officials at the Marshall Plan to help underwrite a miniboom in hotel room construction. By the end of the plan France boasted 452,471 rooms, more than any other country in Europe. They also latched on to the idea of making Paris a popular city for conventions. From those American-inspired beginnings, Paris grew to become the world’s most popular city for meetings.
Tourism v.s. Public Diplomacy
U. S. officials also hoped that American tourists would play a role in diplomacy. In one of the first modern instances of tourism purposefully used as public diplomacy, both governments decided that American tourism would strengthen the ties between the two people and win the French over to the American side of the burgeoning Cold War. At that moment the French Communist Party was one of the strongest political parties in the country. The French government sided with the United States against the Soviet Union but not because of those American visitors.
On the contrary, this was the moment when the Americans and the French discovered how much they didn’t like each other. The American tourists thought the French were “haughty,” and the French thought the Americans were vulgar consumers. At one point the U.S. State Department had to print advisories to American travelers with “tips for your trip” for getting along with the French.
This was the first hint that simply letting tourists loose in a foreign country would not necessarily lead to better understanding. Mass tourism by people who couldn’t speak the native language often had the opposite effect. (The French eventually solved that problem by learning English, now the international language.)
The plan did fulfill the American goal of getting France back on its feet and firmly within the western camp, as well as establishing a new pattern of trade with the United States. The biggest impact, though, was on France, which exceeded its goal of wooing 3 million tourists to the country in 1952. American government aid had kick-started the modern tourism industry in France with those hotel rooms, tourist airfares and inculcation of the idea of Paris as the ideal city for glamour. From then on, the French government kept its hand in all aspects of tourism.
- Elizabeth Becker, Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism, 2013.
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